then he had either remained there or flown into a different portion of his territory. Now they regarded the mountain, sure that the monster lived here and anxious to find the safest route of ascent.
Danyal wondered for a moment if, now that they had discovered the location, Kelryn might try to kill them. The lad resolved that wouldn't happen without a fight. But apparently the bandit lord was still frightened of the prospects of going on alone.
'You will go first, along with the kender and the historian,' Kelryn informed Dan. 'The lass and I will follow along behind, just to make perfectly sure the rest of you stay honest.'
'If you harm her…' Danyal didn't complete the threat, but the fury burned hot in his eyes. Kelryn Dare-wind merely shrugged.
'Let's see… we can ascend the peak just about anywhere,' Foryth Teel suggested, anxiously changing the subject. 'It doesn't look like a real tricky mountain to climb.'
'I think we should follow that gully,' Dan suggested, pointing to a ravine that scored deep through the rough ground on the mountain's lower slope. 'At least we'll stay out of sight from the lair.'
The others agreed, and they used the waning hours of daylight to reach the foot of the conical summit. The lake of steaming water was nearby, off to their left, and even from a quarter mile away they could see that the surface of the water actually boiled in places, bubbles gurgling explosively upward, a roiled swath of waves churning into steam. A thick plume of water vapor rose from the lake, shrouding the valley in a nearly eternal fog, and they were grateful for the added concealment, even as the clammy air kept the perspiration on their skin from dissipating and matted their hair and clothing into a perpetually damp mess.
Despite the boiling lake, the air chilled rapidly with the coming of night. A cool wind blew down from the heights, and their breath frosted in the air as the four companions and their brutal enemy started the ascent.
At least the gully proved to be a good choice of a route. Though they occasionally had to maneuver around large rocks or short, precipitous drops in the sloping floor of the ravine, the party was able to climb in a trench with walls rising twenty or thirty feet high to either side. For hour after hour, they made their way upward, pausing rarely for a few minutes of rest, but then immediately turning back to the challenges of the steep ravine floor.
By mutual, unspoken assent, Danyal led the way. He and Emilo were the most nimble of the companions, but in the last days, the kender had seemed to lose some of his bold, carefree nature. Dan wasn't certain whether this was because of the frequency and violence of the recurring spells, or because of concern for Mirabeth. In any event, the change had been dramatic and saddening.
The lad carried a loop of short rope, the line one of a few things they had salvaged from the ruins of Loreloch, and over the steep stretches of the climb, he braced himself at the top and dangled the rope as an added handhold for his companions.
In these sections, Kelryn Darewind climbed one-handed, keeping a tight grip on the knife and Mirabeth with the other. Any thoughts Danyal had about dropping the rope were quickly dashed when he saw that he would inevitably injure the lass as well as the bandit lord.
It was after midnight when, having just completed a fifteen-foot stretch of vertical ascent, they paused for another gasping rest. It looked to Danyal as though they were only halfway up the steep, high mountain, and he suppressed a twinge of fear, not wanting to imagine what would happen if daylight revealed them to be far from cover, fully exposed on this craggy summit of bare rock.
'Tsk — there's a hole here,' Foryth said wearily. 'I almost fell in.'
A waft of steam in Dan's face was the first indication that there was a deep break in the ravine floor. Following the warmth, Danyal came around a large rock to see a black hole in the ground, a gap large enough for a person — but certainly not a dragon-to squeeze through. 'Ifs a cave!' Danyal exclaimed. 'It could be a vent for the dragon's lair,' Foryth suggested thoughtfully, coming to stand beside the lad.
'Let's go in here, then,' the lad suggested. The warmth of the air felt so good that for a moment he was able to quell the emotions of fear and hate that were raging in his mind.
The others agreed, so once again the human lad led the way. Danyal crawled on his belly, feeling the passage open up within a few feet of the first entrance. Trying to move silently, he reversed himself so that his feet were preceding him. Sliding on his rump, he came to a lip of stone. Despite the nearly complete darkness, he discerned a surface a short distance below his feet and was able to slide down until he was standing on a smooth, flat rock.
In short order, the others had joined him. Though they moved without speaking, each whisper of cloth scraping over stone, each scuff of a bootheel finding purchase on the floor, seemed like a loud, resonant noise in the still darkness. Kelryn tightened his grip on Mirabeth, and as Dan's face flushed, the lass looked at him with a mute plea. She wanted him to remain calm, and for her sake, he did.
Gradually Danyal realized that it was neither utterly still nor completely dark within the subterranean chamber.
'Go!' hissed Kelryn. 'Lead the way!' A dull rumble of sound seemed to rise from the very rock itself. Indeed, it was not so much a noise as a vibration, a trembling that was apparent in the air and the firmament in equal portions. The ground seemed unsettled, and Dan wondered momentarily if the cave was on the brink of collapse. Still, the walls seemed solid, and on a practical level, the noise seemed likely to mask at least the small, incidental noises made by the four intruders. Furthermore, though the narrow entry passage screened all the ambient light of the night, there was a pale illumination that marked the curving outlines of a narrow, stone-walled cavern.
There was a crimson tint to the glow, which suggested an origin in a hot furnace of fire or embers. Whatever its source, however, Danyal was glad for the light, relieved that they wouldn't have to grope through darkness or, even worse, carry some sort of light that would clearly announce their presence to any denizen with eyes.
By silent, mutual consent, they began to advance carefully along the cavern. The footing was surprisingly smooth. There was none of the loose rock or gravel underfoot that Danyal would have expected, indeed had encountered in every other cave he had ever explored. Instead, it was almost as though this stone had flowed here like thick mud, then hardened into the curves and whorls that made the footing in this smooth-walled passage such easy going.
Warm, dry air wafted into their faces, the temperature increasing gradually to a baking heat that suggested a source of deep and infernal fire. The illumination, too, increased, until they were advancing through a cavern limned in crimson, with a fiery center beckoning and threatening from ahead.
Finally they came to an end of their narrow tunnel, finding an aperture that was perhaps twenty feet above the floor in a much larger cave. The floor below them was crisscrossed with lines of bright red, like liquid fiame, and a great black knob of stone rose from the midst of the vast circular chamber.
There was no sign of the dragon. However, Danyal stiffened when he felt Foryth touch his arm, then point toward a shadowy alcove on the far side of the cavern.
A skull, a human skull, sat there, regarding them with black, eyeless sockets. Despite its fleshless inanimation, Dan felt a shiver of apprehension as he beheld the piece of bone. He could not ignore a sensation that those sightless eyes were staring right at him.
'There it is!' Kelryn Darewind whispered, his face distorted by a leer of anticipation. Again he tightened his grip on Mirabeth, and his eyes found Dan. 'You, boy. Go down there and bring it to me!'
Danyal's combination of emotions-his hatred for the bandit lord and his fear for Mirabeth's life-must have created an amusing torment on his face. In any event, Kelryn Darewind looked at him and laughed as he pressed the dagger a little harder against her skin.
'Why do you hesitate? Are you frightened finally?'
Kelryn pressed forward, still holding Mirabeth as he herded the trio of companions to the lip of the drop. Danyal saw a narrow ledge and started along the descending ramp, clinging to the wall as he inched his way along. Foryth, then Emilo, followed. Still clutching Mirabeth in the crook of his arm, the bandit lord came along behind, keeping the knife poised for a killing strike.
At last they worked their way down to the cavern floor, feeling the bedrock of the mountain quickly warm the soles of their boots and moccasins. In a small group, they crossed a stone arch that spanned one of the rivers. The crimson stuff was, in fact, molten rock, Foryth explained to Danyal.
Finally they gathered before the alcove where rested the skull of Fistandantilus. Its sightless eyes still glared, and Danyal squirmed under the uncanny sensation that they were watching him.
It was Emilo who took a step forward, scrambling up a shelf of rock below the alcove. He stared at the skull from only a foot or two away, and Danyal realized that the normally fearless kender was trembling.
